Making Sense of Safety Management Systems
Guest Post by George Stavrou – SH&E
Manager. This was an assignment submitted as part of his studies at The
Centre for Leadership, Learning and Risk
My car has started showing signs
of ageing, signalling upcoming costly repairs. In other words, it’s time for a
more reliable, economical and durable car.
So, without losing much time, I
visited a car dealer, found the model I liked, chose the colour, negotiated,
settled on a price and happily signed the deal. The agent, after checking his
delivery schedule, turned and said with great confidence: ‘Sir,
congratulations, your new car will be ready for pick up in exactly two months’.
‘That’s great’ I replied, ‘just in time for my birthday, what a great
present!!’
But while on my way home, I
started thinking what if the car does not arrive on time? And not what I
expect? Firstly, I’ll be very disappointed to miss out on such a good present.
Secondly, I don’t like depending on others, this would be impractical and
inconvenient. Surely, I thought to myself, the agent will honour his promise
and won’t let me down easily. Surely, reputable car manufacturers are well
established in their ways to ensure their commitment is honoured?
But I have worked in manufacturing
for most of my life, delays and mishaps are simply a common occurrence. Dealing
with the unexpected, such as: shortage of supply, machinery breakdowns,
industrial or health issues and more, is rather the norm than the exception.
The commonplace is a steady stream of interruptions and recoveries. Smart
leaders and managers need to allow sufficient redundancy so as not to let these
disruptions hinder meeting customer expectation.
To overcome uncertainty,
organisations tend to invest heavily on risk management strategies aiming to
remove or reduce the impact of disruptions, that can undermine their
performance and reliability. One of these strategies, is the implementation of
international management standards such as the ISO9001 for Quality and ISO 45001
for Occupational Health & Safety. These standards are globally renown for
providing organisations an assurance in delivering business objectives
sustainably and instilling confidence on the product and service they provide
to their customers. According to the International Standards Organisation, ‘a
management system helps organisation improve their performance by specifying
repeatable activities and processes that organisations are expected to
diligently implement to achieve their goals and objectives’.
ISO Standards, in particular
Safety Management Systems (SMS) standards, have spread across virtually all
hazardous industrial activities and they represent now an essential reference
point Inspired by business management methods, these programs explicitly describe
the way an organisation should identify and manage risks under its leadership.
Most formal SMS tend to describe a safety management strategy mainly based on:
anticipation, predefined response, top-down command and control of safety
behaviour (Paries et al, 2018). This may sound a reasonable strategy, but what
about managing unanticipated and unexpected events?
Undoubtedly, emerging situations
and interruptions warrant an appropriate and timely response. When facing such
situations, people tend to make enquiries and seek information from those who
have the knowledge or the authority, allowing them to interpret events and
clarify ambiguities in order to come up with a responsive action.
This interactive process is
probably carried out naturally and habitually in most places, but always within
the tolerances of internal organisation culture. Karl Weick (2009) makes this
social interaction of discovery, interpretation and decision making more
explicit and he calls it, the process of “organisational sensemaking”.
According to Weick, Sensemaking is not a random construct, it is a structured
process designed to assist maintaining social relationship in a coordinated
manner to prevent equivocality.
The process is characterised by
the following seven properties:
1) Social context
Organizational Sensemaking is a
social activity and is influenced by the presence of others. It is interactive
and relational, requiring mutual respect from people, even in disagreement,
more trust than empathy and diversity of opinion instead of homogeneity.
2) Personal Identity
The interpretation of events is
heavily influenced by the identity of people and their function in a setting.
In the process of creating a meaning, various roles are assumed, such as that
of a detective, local expert, science specialist, action coordinator and more.
During Sensemaking, these roles are constructed and maintained as identities to
facilitate organising and collective action.
3) Retrospection
People become to know what they
have done only after they do it. Cognition is slightly behind action, with a
delay that can sometime be measured in microseconds. The function and value of
reflection is of paramount importance helping with understanding and
interpretation of the emerging events.
4) Salient Cues
People tend to notice tiny
indicators that help them form their own picture of what is happening. It is
worth mentioning, that these cues are not equally noticeable. Individual biases
or preferences and environmental condition, make certain cues more prominent
and salient that others.
5) Sensemaking is Ongoing
Sensemaking occurs in a
continuously flowing experience. People find themselves thrown in the middle of
things and forced to act without a stability of what is happening. Sensemaking
requires interrupting that flow and take a mental snapshot of events.
6) Plausibility
Sensemaking is about creating a
coherent story, how events hang together with sufficient certainty and
credibility. And since the story is based on certain cues, it could not
possibly be complete. In Weick’s view, plausibility is more important that
accuracy in this process, because plausibility moves people into action.
7) Enactment
Enactment is the intervention
that helps proving people’s understanding of a situation.
Like Sensemaking, enactment is also a continuous activity, with the capacity to make changes to which people have subsequently have to adjust. It is worth noting that Organisational Sensemaking best works in an environment of trust and collaboration, where debate and criticism is welcomed as a form of learning and maturing with less reliance on predetermined processes. Organisations practicing Sensemaking, refrain from simplifying their processes but instead ensure their people understand the complexity of issues they face.
If Organisational Sensemaking is
an important risk management process, then why it is omitted from safety
assurance programs?
Paries (2018) is of the view,
that SMS tend to follow a mechanistic model, based on bureaucratic ideal of
organisational control, and the eradication of uncertainty through rational
anticipation and planning. Sensemaking fits an organic model based on:
resilience, trial and learning, adaptation to the unexpected and
self-organisation capacities.
SMS seem to be silent about the organic’s
social reality of an organisation. As we know, where there are people, there
are always social interactions which naturally shape the organisational
culture. These are inseparable from the dynamics that consequently influence
the risk management capability of the organisation.
International management
standards view a process as a set of interrelated or interacting processes that
transform input into outputs. This simplistic idea of organisational process
somehow may appear idealistic and impractical. According to Weick, real life
has taught us that any information we receive is ambivalent which requires some
effort by each one us to sharpen our understanding. Hence the importance of
Sensemaking in helping reducing equivocality and ambiguity for managing emerging
risks. (Weick, 2009)
SMS favour a clearly defined
organisational structure with the aim to facilitate sound and rational decision-making
processes. However, they do not seem to recognise the relationships between the
different parties and their impact on organising in the face of risk. On the
other hand, all business leaders appreciate the value of good relationships and
utilising trust as a catalyst for a productive and agile operation. The latter
is also supported by Weick, who highlights the need to focus on relationships
between interdependent entities, more than the rigid structure of command and
hierarchy, particular in the face of a crisis.
To organise is to assemble
ongoing interdependent action into sensible sequences that general create sensible
outcomes. Note that Weick insists on the use of the word “organising” instead
of organisation, to illustrate flow and movement in information and action. It
is inappropriate to imply rigidity to organising. Weick argues that organising
is an ongoing encounter with ambiguity, ambivalence and equivocality
(Czarniawska, 2005). There is no binary stasis construct in organising.
In conclusion, it could be argued
that management systems, whether they are quality or safety related, have their
purpose in setting foundations for repeatable processes in an organising.
However, it is also important that the capability and limitation of these
systems, be recognised and understood. Management system strategies are based
on anticipation, predefined responses, top-down command and control of safety
behaviour (Paries, 2018). They are often silent about the social reality of
organising, interrelationships and managing the ambiguity and fluidity of real-life
events all of which influence risk management. When it comes to tackling
emerging risks, in particular those with catastrophic consequences the process
of Organisational Sensemaking is important.
Thinking about the arrival of my
new car, I am hoping that the manufacturer has adopted Organisational
Sensemaking in conjunction with their accredited quality and safety assurance
programs. Once embedded in the activity of organising, Sensemaking helps better
interpreting unexpected issues and tackles them with wisdom and maturity. These
traits, are not only utilised in averting catastrophic risks, but can also be
applied to help resolving manufacturing, product design or other challenges
effectively. Such a culture will undoubtedly create capability, risk
intelligence and the appropriate work environment to produce cars, not only on
time, but also to meet the real-life expectations of people like me who
purchase them.
References
Czarniawska, B. (2005) Karl Weick: Concepts, Style and Reflection, The
Editorial Board of the Sociological Review 2005.
Pariès, J. (2018). Comparing HROs
and RE in the light of safety management system, Safety
Science (March 2018).
Weick, K. E. (2000) Making Sense of the Organization, Vol. 2.
Blackwell, Oxford.
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